The Snake and the Rope: A Jungian View of Hinduism

While there are many psychological monographs on Hinduism, no work has surveyed the history of that tradition in a sustained way. Thus, The Snake and the Rope: A Jungian View of Hinduism breaks new ground both for religious studies and for psychology. Trained on both sides of the argument, the author of this work is uniquely qualified to elucidate what, for example, the Vedic hymns meant to the people who composed them and what they might mean for us today. He shows us what karma means for Hindus and what Jung says it canmean for us. We learn how Jungians use the term "Self" that Jung borrowed from the Upanishads and how it is the same and different in its new, modern context. The reader will witness a red thread of "goddess worship" from earliest India to Classical Hinduism. Jung says the modern equivalent is devotion to the collective unconscious deep within ourselves. Having served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in a Thai village in the late 1960's, George R. Elder returned to the States to earn a Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies from Columbia University. He subsequently taught Comparative Religions at Hunter College (City University of New York) and would co-chair the Religion Program for several years. In 1989, Dr. Elder and his family relocated to Florida. He trained to become a Jungian analyst and maintains a professional relationship with the C. G. Jung Study Center of Southern California. His works include The Body: An Encyclopedia of Archetypal Symbolism in collaboration with ARAS (Shambhala, 1996). He recently co-edited An American Jungian: In Honor of Edward F. Edinger(Inner City, 2009).